


A Real Boyfriend

by bomberqueen17



Series: Two-Body Problem [12]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Anal Sex, Blowjobs, Coming Out, Episode: s03e10 The Return Part 1, M/M, TIGHT jeans, no underwear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:24:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during The Return: on Earth, John realizes, there are six billion people, and he doesn't live on an isolated military base, so there's enough room for him to live quite comfortably in the closet. John's experiment with Being Gay With Rodney is short-lived, however. </p><p>Starts out slow but it's mostly smut from there.</p><p>Wrote this way long ago and have been killing myself trying to keep from Jossing myself as I work slowly through Two-Body Problem. I think I managed, though the tone's a little different here. </p><p>I am proud of myself with how well this follows from Vala telling him to just fucking talk to Rodney already in the previous story in this series, which I just now wrote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Real Boyfriend

John drew the line at candles. He always kept his living quarters tidy, and this nothing little apartment in Colorado Springs was no exception. He hadn’t settled in here, was still just living as if it were temporary, and it was almost scarily sterile. 

But Rodney was visiting. And the man was at home in mess. So John had actually reverse-cleaned the apartment. He took the pile of new shirts he’d bought out of the drawer and stacked them on top of the dresser, unpacked the surfboard and skateboard and leaned them against the walls, took his uniform jacket off the hanger in the closet and transferred it to the back of a chair. He made it look like he’d been living in this apartment, not just biding time until he could go back to work. He wasn’t about to buy new furniture or anything, but he did get a bathmat for the bathroom, and matching towels, instead of the regulation issue ones he’d stuffed into his gym bag at the SGC and illicitly brought home. He upgraded the sheets, too, while he was there— nothing fancy, but navy blue at least, not white, and reasonably soft instead of the scratchy ones they had in the furnished apartments.

And he bought some groceries, so there was something in the cupboard, something in the fridge. Not much, just a few necessities, again to make it look like he really lived here and ate at home, not in the mess. Good enough. Made him look like less of a sad loser, made it someplace Rodney might be more amenable to hanging out. The nightstand full of condoms and lube might help too. John took the condoms out of the box and threw the box out so it wasn’t obvious that it had been unopened, unused. Of course there wasn’t anybody but Rodney, and he didn’t really want to make Rodney jealous, but it didn’t do to advertise it. 

But no candles, no romantic music, no low lighting. That would just be freaky. And would remove the plausible deniability if it turned out Rodney really wasn’t on board with what John hadn’t let himself really plan.

He showed up like an hour early at the airport and parked in a fast food restaurant parking lot for a little while, fidgeting with his phone until it was actually close to time for Rodney’s plane to land. Then he went and parked, parked legally, and went in, and kicked his heels up and down the concourse, trying not to fidget, trying not to look excited. He’d taken way too much care over looking like he hadn’t taken too much care over his appearance; every cowlick was carefully tousled just-so, he’d shaved a precise twelve hours ago, then showered just before leaving, done a little manscaping but not obviously, unbuttoned just one too many buttons on the freshly-laundered and ironed-then-crumpled shirt, half-untucked one of the tails of it, and smoothed damp hands down the thighs of his jeans until they looked a little less new and a little more broken in. 

He probably looked ridiculous— he usually did, out of uniform— but the odds of Rodney noticing were low. One of the perks of… well, he wasn’t dating a geek. He wasn’t sure if he was even fucking a geek. This way he had plausible deniability, though. He’d gotten out sheets for the couch and was prepared to offer that if it seemed like he’d misunderstood Rodney’s little moment of stammering on the phone. 

Bases covered. He settled his sunglasses down over his eyes and set his shoulders against the cool tile of the wall and watched the arrivals gate, arms crossed and cellphone in his pocket where he’d feel it vibrate if it went off. 

“Waiting for anybody important?” a voice said from next to him. He slid his glance to the left. There was a woman leaning against the wall beside him, blonde hair, tan skin, just a hint of the telltale tan lines of ski goggles at the corners of her eyes; compact athletic build in designer workout gear, expensive handbag and designer sunglasses. Colorado chic, which John had little experience with because he never got off base. 

“Could be,” John said, but he’d seen her look at his left hand, seen her notice no ring, no tan line from a ring. 

“I’m picking up my boss,” she said, with a little eyeroll. “Owns a workout studio, does a line of videos. You look like you work out.”

“I do,” he said. “Not for fun, though.” 

“Oh no?” She laughed, eyes crinkling a little. She wasn’t too young for him, older than she’d looked at first, probably close to his age. “Who really does?”

“I mean, really not for fun,” he said. “I run for fun. The rest of it’s work.”

“I think of running as a necessary evil, myself,” she said. “The rest, for me, is kinda fun. That’s funny you feel the opposite.” 

John shook his head blandly. “I sort of get shot at for a living,” he said. “The running’s kind of an escape, literally. The rest just usually gets me in more trouble.”

“You a cop?” she asked, leaning in a little. 

“Nah,” he said. 

She leaned in still a little more. “Bodyguard?” she asked. 

He snorted. “Nah,” he said. 

“Soldier?” she asked, eyes going a little wider. He shot her a look. 

“Closer,” he said.

“FBI?” she asked breathlessly. 

He laughed. “No,” he said, “Air Force.”

Her eyebrows went up, at that, and she leaned back against the wall, laughing and shaking her head. “Air Force,” she said. “You realize as an Army brat I have to call it the Chair Force.”

“Call it what you like,” he said. “Grind your heels in the mud and wait for the air strike to bail you out, I’ll be the one with the bombs.”

“You fly?” she asked. 

“Sure do,” he said. “You name it, I’ve flown it.” 

“My dad was Infantry,” she said. 

John nodded. “Rough gig,” he said with a grimace. 

“Yeah,” she said, “he was pretty proud of it. Taught me how to wield a shovel pretty good.”

John had to grin at that. “There is a knack to it,” he said. “Done a fair bit of diggin’ myself. I had Marines to teach me, though.”

“Pff,” she said, “Marines. I only know one thing about Marines, and that’s that they’re crazy.”

“Hoo-rah,” John said. “Never kiss ‘em on the mouth, they’re filthy.” 

She laughed long and hard at that. “They make sailors look well-behaved,” she said. 

“I don’t know a ton of sailors,” John admitted. “So that, I couldn’t speak to. I did always want to try landing a plane on an aircraft carrier, though. I’ve been up in one of their Hornets but I only had a regular runway to land it on.”

“I bet that was cool,” the woman said. “Dad wanted to be a pilot, he admitted once, but his eyesight wasn’t good enough.”

“Best job in the world,” John said. He shook his head. “Lately I’m not flyin’ anything, but that’s not my fault. I’ll get back to it soon enough.” He crossed his arms a little tighter. “At least what I’m doin’ is a nice break from medevacs, that was my last deployment. Ugh.” 

“I bet you see some shit,” she said. 

“Yeah,” he said, “you do.” He grimaced. “Get shot at more than you’d like, too. That kind of thing, I tend to get in trouble.” 

“I bet,” she said, and the way she had her arms crossed, her cleavage was pretty impressive. Most likely fake, on a frame that muscular, but impressive nonetheless. 

John’s phone vibrated and he jumped a little in startlement, then twisted to dig it out of his pocket and flip it open. Text message. He didn’t have the hang of those at all. He opened it. From Rodney. It just said, “Kirk!”

“What?” John shoved his sunglasses up, then heard a distinctive laugh from a little farther along the wall. 

“You totally are,” Rodney said. 

“Hey,” John said, taking his sunglasses off the rest of the way. “McKay!” He grinned. 

“Who’s your friend?” Rodney asked. 

John blinked at the woman, who looked amused. “I, um,” he said, “we didn’t actually exchange names. She’s waitin' for somebody too.”

“Maria,” she said, and shook Rodney’s hand. “Welcome to Colorado.” She made a face, and fished her phone out of her jacket pocket. “Gotta go. Good talking to you.” 

John shook her hand too, since she offered, and she stepped a little closer and murmured, “Jealous boyfriend? Nice.”

He thought about protesting, but instead he grinned. “Yeah,” he said, giving her an eyebrow quirk, then turned back to Rodney and hugged him. It was, exhilaratingly, the gayest thing he’d ever done in public.

“Oh,” Rodney said, surprised, and put his arms around John awkwardly. 

John deliberately dragged his stubbly jaw across Rodney’s ear and breathed, “Missed ya.”

 

There was no misunderstanding. Rodney blushed and stammered through the terminal, blatantly checked out John’s ass on the way to the car, and before they were even on the highway had advanced to running a hand up John’s thigh. 

“I’ve never seen you in jeans before,” Rodney said, and John eyed his khakis and noted with some satisfaction that they were fitting tighter across the crotch than they had been. 

“Just bought these,” John said. “I haven’t owned jeans in a couple years.”

“They look, um, pretty good,” Rodney said. 

“Good,” John drawled, changing lanes rather more abruptly than he had to just to hear Rodney squawk. 

“Maniac,” Rodney said, but he didn’t take his hand off John’s leg. 

“You know you like it,” John said, grinning insolently. 

Rodney took his hand off John’s leg when they pulled up to the base gate. “You live on-base?” he asked, sounding disappointed. 

“I haven’t had a ton of time for house-hunting,” John said. “And I’m sort of seeing where they’ll assign me before I sign any leases. I got one of the decent bachelor apartments, though. No nosy neighbors.” He shot Rodney another grin, outwardly confident, but inwardly wavered a little. Really? Rodney was going to object to that?

“Oh good,” Rodney said, apparently satisfied. John grabbed his laptop bag and unlocked the door for him. As soon as the door swung shut behind him Rodney grabbed his ass, and John snorted with laughter and crashed into the wall, protecting the laptop bag with his shoulder as he grabbed Rodney around the back of the neck and yanked him close. 

“Hey, Rodney,” John said, grinning into his breathless face at close, close range, before darting in and taking his mouth. His tongue slid across Rodney’s lips before Rodney made an urgent little noise and opened his jaw, sucking John’s lip into his mouth and biting down. 

John made an almost-squeak and snorted with laughter again, breaking away and hauling Rodney up the stairs. “C’mon,” he said. “I got a normal human-sized bed.”

“No,” Rodney said, mock-horrified. “What will we do with all that?”

John opened his apartment door and manhandled Rodney through, slamming him back against the wall and fumbling open the button on his pants as he put his tongue as far down his throat as he could reach. “You’re some kinda genius, right?” he murmured into Rodney’s ear, voice rough and low, and he felt Rodney shiver. “I’m sure you’ll think of _somethin_ ’.”

Rodney shoved his hips against John’s, hands fisting in the back of his shirt. “I think I got some ideas,” he said, breathless. “Oh— fuck, yes, Sheppard.” John had his hand inside Rodney’s pants now, palming his erection through his undershorts. John dropped to his knees, sliding the laptop bag off his shoulder and grinning up at Rodney as he went. 

Rodney swore fluently and fervently as John freed his erection from his boxers and pulled it out through the flies of his pants, holding it on one hand and gazing up past it, lips slightly parted, at Rodney’s face. “I’ll take that as approval,” John said, grinning and sliding his sunglasses up onto the kitchen counter behind himself. He tongued at the head of Rodney’s hard, already-leaking cock, mouth open, teasing, and watched Rodney’s wide-eyed, slack-mouthed response, his eyes so, so intent, watching John like a predator but with his face helpless as a prey animal. 

John sucked the head into his mouth, closing his eyes at the taste of it, tongued just under the tip, where the vein came in, and felt Rodney shudder as he swirled his tongue around the head. Rodney tasted of lust, desire, wanting, and John dropped his jaw and took him deep, rolling his eyes back and flattening his tongue to swallow him down. 

“Ohhhhh God,” he heard Rodney moaning, “oh, yes, Sheppard.” 

He pulled back a little and grinned up at Rodney, letting him slide out onto his tongue, looking up at him through his lashes. “Mm?” He quirked a question at Rodney with his eyebrows. 

“Yes,” Rodney answered fervently, “yes, I missed you, Sheppard, Jesus.”

John smiled, satisfied, and swallowed him down again, setting to work with his hands, bracing him against the wall. Rodney shook and swore and put his hands in John’s hair, completely destroying whatever effort John had put into getting it to be the right kind of crazy. John worked relentlessly, hungrily at him, until finally Rodney shoved him away. 

“Wait,” Rodney panted, hips hitching a little as John slid his mouth slowly along the head, swirling his tongue. “Wait, don’t— Fuck me, Sheppard, I want you to fuck me.”

“You don’t want to come on my face first?” John asked, licking extravagantly along the underside of Rodney’s shaft. 

“God,” Rodney said, and shuddered. “Sheppard, are you trying to kill me?”

“Little death maybe,” John said, closing his eyes and tongueing at the head again, “isn’t that what they call it?”

“ _La petit mort_ ,” Rodney sighed (of course he spoke French), hand sliding down the side of John’s face to cradle his jaw. “Come on, you promised me a real grown-up sized bed, and my genius brain has come up with something to do in it, and that something is the incredibly creative idea that you should fuck me straight through that mattress.”

“Nngh,” John said, “God, I love it when you sweet-talk.” 

“That’s me,” Rodney said, “Mr. Smooth Romantic. Christ, Sheppard, take your pants off before I have a heart attack and die.”

“Death by Levis,” John mused, partly to cover up how difficult it was to get to his feet. He hadn’t noticed his feet going numb and God, his knees were not really up for these kinds of shenanigans like they had been ten years ago. Not that he’d done these sorts of shenanigans ten years ago. Well, not gay ones. 

“Death by someone else’s Levis,” Rodney said, “yes yes, I’m ridiculous, now oh my God off off off.” He grabbed at John’s belt and they stumbled into one another, down the hall, and into the bedroom, and by the time John’s shoulders hit the door Rodney had his jeans open and had discovered his lack of underpants. 

“Christ, Sheppard,” Rodney said, grabbing his cock, and John bit his lip and thrust into Rodney’s hand, shocked at the sheer bright flare of pleasure. He was so hard, so ready, it was gonna take everything he had to last long enough to do Rodney any kind of justice. 

“Bed,” John panted, yanking Rodney’s shirt off over his head. He manhandled Rodney down into the bed and wriggled out of his jeans on his way down onto him. He still had his shirt on but it was unbuttoned all the way. He stripped Rodney out of his khakis and boxers, took socks and shoes off as smoothly as he could manage while he was working the pants off, and pinned Rodney down, totally naked and here and in his bed. 

“God,” Rodney was panting, “yes, Sheppard, yes, oh,” a constant little breathless soundtrack. John shut him up by stopping his mouth with his own, lying on top of him, rubbing his cock into his hip, Rodney’s erection sliding along his belly. “Ah,” Rodney panted, desperate, as John pulled his mouth off and set to work biting at his neck— it didn’t matter now, if there were hickeys, it didn’t matter if he left a bite mark, it didn’t matter, this was a big planet and he had room for a personal life nobody knew about. He bit down hard, sucked a little, licked over the skin, and Rodney squirmed. John could tell it was the turned-on kind of squirm, not the uncomfortable kind, even though Rodney was yammering and protesting. 

“Rodney,” John said, low and gravelly and right in his ear, “I hope you didn’t have anywhere you wanted to walk to later, because I am going to fuck the hell out of you right now.”

Rodney moaned incoherently, fingers scrabbling at John’s back. John yanked the nightstand drawer open and squeezed out way too much lube and shoved his fingers into Rodney’s ass anyway, too much lube and all, and Rodney spread his legs for him almost reflexively, voice catching in an incredibly hot groan. “Ahhh, fuck me, yesss,” he hissed, eyes rolling back as John set to work with his fingers. 

“Oh, I’m gonna, Rodney,” John promised. Rodney’s ears were ticklish; murmuring hoarsely into them was one of the easiest ways to short-circuit the man and reduce him to a gibbering wreck. Especially with dirty talk. And John was pulling out all the stops tonight. “And it doesn’t matter if everyone can tell that you’ve been fucked,” he went on. “There are six billion people on this planet… and we don’t live on an isolated military base.”

Rodney moaned in some kind of possible agreement at that, writhing excitingly, and John fucked him harder with his fingers, other hand on the base of his own cock, squeezing hard. He wanted to last and he was too excited already. 

“Fuck me, Sheppard,” Rodney gasped, “oh God, do it now, come on!”

“You gonna last?” John asked, mercilessly crooking his fingers. Rodney cried out and writhed and bore down on him. “C’mon, I want you to hold off, are you gonna last once I get inside you?”

“Yes,” Rodney said, “oh, God, yes, but only if you— oh _God_ — fuck me now!”

John pulled his fingers out slowly, sat back on his heels between Rodney’s thighs, got out a condom from the drawer, all with slow deliberation, getting himself under control. Rodney looked so good, sprawled out on the dark-colored sheets, skin luminously pale, legs spread wide, arms clutching out at the edges of the bed as if to keep himself anchored. “God you’re a pretty sight,” John said, slowly, slowly rolling the condom down his cock. 

“Want you,” Rodney panted, “need you, inside me, now.”

“Look at you all spread out,” John said, very slowly and deliberately smoothing lube along the length of his cock, resisting the need to stroke himself. If he just dove in there he was gonna last like ten seconds. He breathed deep instead, focusing himself. “Lying there like some kind of slut. Are you a slut, McKay?”

“Only for you,” Rodney said, voice trembling a little, thighs trembling. His pupils were so dilated, his mouth red and swollen and wet, a bite bruise blooming on his neck. 

John settled himself a little closer between Rodney’s legs, stroking his hands lightly up the outsides of his thighs to his hips and back down. Rodney shuddered at his touch, spread his thighs a little wider, and whined, “Please, Sheppard, God, please.”

“Now you’re begging me for it,” John said, pleased. “You need me that bad?”

“God,” Rodney moaned, “yes, please, John, I need you, I need you to fuck me.”

Rodney never called John by his given name, not even at times like this, and John had been working on not letting that bother him, but the name went right through him now and he took Rodney’s face between his hands and kissed him deeply, scooting his thighs right up to Rodney’s ass, practically holding him in his lap. “Yeah,” John murmured, almost a whisper. “Well, I need to fuck you now, Rodney, so that’s a happy circumstance.”

He sat back a little and worked the head of his cock carefully into Rodney, then leaned forward again, covering Rodney’s body with his, pushing down slowly, and Rodney threw his head back and groaned, deep and heartfelt, as John slid slowly into him. “Ahh, yess, Johnnn,” Rodney said, voice rising gradually into a sharp cry as John shoved in the last little bit, balls slapping gently against Rodney’s ass. “Fuck! Yes!”

“Your ass is amazing,” John hissed. “Oh Jesus, Rodney.” His ass was so hot, so tight; he hadn’t been fucked in a long time. “Oh God. This is an ass that needs to be fucked.”

“Yes, don’t stop doing so,” Rodney said, and for a moment John was a little worried that Rodney had the coherence to be snippy, but a glance at Rodney’s face showed that it was pure reflex. 

“Sure thing, boss,” John said, grinning down at him, and moving into him a little more fluidly. He fucked him steadily, harder and deeper as Rodney swore and shook beneath him. He reached down and took Rodney’s cock in his hand and stroked it, first gently, then more intensely, and Rodney cried out and bucked and shuddered and clenched down around him, making a slippery mess of his stomach and John’s new sheets. 

John watched him come with a kind of dazed pleasure that after a few more moments crashed bluntly over his head in a wave and left him feeling hollowed-out and amazed. He slowly, slowly collapsed onto Rodney, face in the man’s shoulder, arms wrapped around his body, shuddering with aftershocks and absolutely boneless.

Rodney’s arms came up after a few moments and clumsily patted his shoulder, the back of his neck, his back. “Wow,” Rodney said after a little longer. 

“Yeah,” John said. He was in pretty good shape even among in-shape people but it still took him a little while to catch his breath. The warm lassitude that flooded all his limbs didn’t make it any easier, but he knew he only had a few more seconds before Rodney started bitching. 

“This is awesome for most of me,” Rodney said, right on cue, “but not my back.”

“Yeah,” John said, and shivered on a late aftershock.

“Also you better get that condom out of my ass before it gets lost in there,” Rodney added, but he wasn’t twitching or fidgeting yet so John figured he had another few seconds. 

“Mmm,” John said, nuzzling at Rodney’s neck, his body suffused with an aching tenderness. He wanted to cradle Rodney in his arms, murmur sweet nothings, propose marriage, make absurd declarations— it was the kind of impulse he often got after orgasms, which was why he preferred not to move or speak if necessary. He let himself stroke Rodney’s jaw and nuzzle his way down Rodney’s neck to his shoulder, though. 

Rodney sighed, and it sounded happy to John, but then he fidgeted, and John steeled himself and shoved himself up on an elbow and started working himself, with the condom, back out of Rodney. “Ah God,” Rodney said tightly, “slow,” and John smirked at him. 

“This ain’t my first rodeo, pardner,” he said. “I gotcha. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t hurtcha.” 

He expected something snippy in reply but instead Rodney looked gobsmacked, then said, almost dreamily, “I know,” with an unexpectedly sweet crooked little smile. 

John had to stop then and kiss him, long and deep and searching. 

 

 

It was strange to fall asleep together in a reasonably-sized bed. John woke with Rodney curled around him, big spoon to his little spoon, but without the edge of the bed perilously close it wasn’t quite as desperately intimate. He let himself wake up slow, grinning like an idiot. They could do this. He could have this. They could make their lives work like this. Maybe it’d have to be long distance but it was better that way. Rodney could have friends in Las Vegas, he could be out, he could freely talk about his boyfriend, and when John visited he could openly acknowledge him as long as there weren’t any military personnel around. Even then, as long as it wasn’t anyone who knew him. It could be… it could be a real relationship. 

It didn’t really make up for the aching loss of Atlantis but it was something, and John let himself think about that much. He hadn’t been really considering it, not in depth, because he didn’t know if Rodney would still want him. He still didn’t know if it was worth it to Rodney, if on a planet with six billion people he’d be happier taking his chances shopping around when this wasn’t convenient. But the possibility existed, and John let himself fall back asleep still grinning like a moron about it. 

“Oh shit,” Rodney said a little while later, peering over John’s shoulder at the clock. “Don’t we have to get ready for dinner?”

John blinked at the clock. “We got time,” he said, suppressing a pang that they’d wasted the rest of the afternoon doing something so mundane as sleeping. If Rodney went along with this, they’d have all the time in the world. He wriggled around in Rodney’s grip and pressed himself up against him, pushing him over onto his back and pinning him down to kiss him deeply. “We got time for a nice long shower.”

“Mmm,” Rodney said helplessly, writhing beneath him. This was fine, John thought, working another bite-bruise into Rodney’s collarbone, feeling Rodney go from sleepy to frantically aroused under him. This was great. Because he could have a couple drinks with dinner, get all cheerful and loosened-up seeing old friends, and then they could come home and he could work up enough courage to actually talk to Rodney about this plan, this plan of maybe really having a relationship. 

John let Rodney give it to him hard in the shower, until his knees almost gave out and he came everywhere, so hard he almost passed out. Rodney held him, nuzzling into his neck where it met his shoulder from behind, big shoulders curled protectively around him as the hot water ran down the warm tiles in front of him, and John let himself want this, let himself think of this happening again and again, years of this, relying on this, what that would be like. 

“Rodney,” he said, when he could talk again, and Rodney hummed blissfully in his ear, kissing his neck, running his fingers through John’s hair and mussing it up. 

“That was pretty good, huh?” Rodney murmured, and John shivered and tilted his head back as Rodney nuzzled around toward the front of his neck, up under his jaw. 

“Yeah,” John said happily. 

They were almost late to dinner, with no chance to talk. John was still a little endorphin-high when they got there, a little soft-eyed and goofy, but it was easy enough to pass that off as being happy to see his friends again. It was awesome to see Elizabeth; he’d missed her and worried about her. He was careful not to drink too much wine, but was feeling confident and happy enough by the end of dinner. Yeah, he was gonna talk to Rodney tonight, maybe even on the way home.

Then his cellphone rang. 

And so did Rodney’s.

And so did Elizabeth’s. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive my indulgence; "Maria" is a cameo of a friend, a workout video guru's personal assistant, whose boobs are NOT fake, thanks. I just wanted Rodney to catch John not-flirting, in full-on never-sees-this-coming mode.


End file.
